2 Samuel 2:8

David’s Army Clashes with the Army of Saul

2:8 Now Abner son of Ner, the general in command of Saul’s army, had taken Saul’s son Ish-bosheth ¹  and had brought him to Mahanaim.

2 Samuel 11:27

11:27 When the time of mourning passed, David had her brought to his palace. ²  She became his wife and she bore him a son. But what David had done upset the Lord. ³ 

2 Samuel 19:24

19:24 Now Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, ⁴  came down to meet the king. From the day the king had left until the day he safely ⁵  returned, Mephibosheth ⁶  had not cared for his feet ⁷  nor trimmed ⁸  his mustache nor washed his clothes.

2 Samuel 21:7

21:7 The king had mercy on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, in light of the Lord’s oath that had been taken between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

2 Samuel 21:16

21:16 Now Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, ⁹  had a spear ¹⁰  that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, ¹¹  and he was armed with a new weapon. ¹²  He had said that he would kill David.

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¹ sn The name Ish-bosheth means in Hebrew “man of shame.” It presupposes an earlier form such as Ish-baal (“man of the Lord”), with the word “baal” being used of Israel’s God. But because the Canaanite storm god was named “Baal,” that part of the name was later replaced with the word “shame.”

² tn Heb “David sent and gathered her to his house.”

³ tn Heb “and the thing which David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Note the verbal connection with v. 25. Though David did not regard the matter as evil, the Lord certainly did.

⁴ tn Heb “son.”

⁵ tn Heb “in peace.” So also in v. 31.

⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Mephibosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn Heb “done his feet.”

⁸ tn Heb “done.”

⁹ tn This name has the definite article and may be intended to refer to a group of people rather than a single individual with this name.

¹⁰ tn This is the only occurrence of this Hebrew word in the OT. Its precise meaning is therefore somewhat uncertain. As early as the LXX the word was understood to refer to a “spear,” and this seems to be the most likely possibility. Some scholars have proposed emending the text of 2 Sam 21:16 to כוֹבַעוֹ (khova’o; “his helmet”), but in spite of the fact that the word “helmet” appears in 1 Sam 17:5, there is not much evidence for reading that word here.

¹¹ tn Either the word “shekels” should be supplied here, or the Hebrew word מִשְׁקַל (mishqal, “weight”) right before “bronze” is a corrupted form of the word for shekel. If the latter is the case the problem probably resulted from another occurrence of the word מִשְׁקַל just four words earlier in the verse.

sn Three hundred bronze shekels would have weighed about 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg).

¹² tn The Hebrew text reads simply “a new [thing],” prompting one to ask “A new what?” Several possibilities have been proposed to resolve the problem: perhaps a word has dropped out of the Hebrew text here; or perhaps the word “new” is the result of misreading a different, less common, word; or perhaps a word (e.g., “sword,” so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, CEV, NLT) is simply to be inferred. The translation generally follows the latter possibility, while at the same time being deliberately nonspecific (“weapon”).